The ground-breaking comedian of the 60’s & 70’s – Flip Wilson – had an expression that he used – “Here come de judge!” I think of that expression often when I’m thinking about what happens to people when they get together. Judgment is something that we seem to be predisposed to in our society. In fact, we’ve developed a society (in the U.S. particularly) that judges everything and everyone almost immediately upon encountering it or them. The term judgment has many definitions, however, the most basic way to look at the term is that Judgment simply means that we arrive at or form an opinion about.

Think about it. You arrive at opinions all day long right? With everyone you meet and everything you encounter you tend to form judgments based on your interactions and your feelings, and your ideas with and about.

In terms of motivation, judgment plays a significant role. It’s our PRE-judgment that in many ways, hinders us in our relationships with people. We pre-judge folks before we know them. We make assumptions about them…form opinions about them right when we meet them or from something they said or wrote, or whatever. It is this pre-judgement that brings up the walls within people and keeps us from really getting to know them or really getting to understand them. In essence, pre-judgment hurts our relationships more than we realize.

If we are to truly motivate ourselves and others…if we are to truly be open, then we must not pre-judge. We must get to know someone…know about them…what makes them tick…what makes them who they are…why they do things…then and only then can we judge and determine if they are someone with whom we want to develop a relationship with professional or otherwise.

Well I’ve finally found a blog home! This is it! After experimenting with several blog interfaces, I’ve finally found one that I actually like! Nothing fancy…no crazy and wild javascript (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but just something simple and clean.

This will be the home of motivationalmojo.com from now on. So enjoy the look and enjoy the features and know that I’ll be not only posting notes from my motivational mojo podcasts, but also daily commentary and personal insight as I see fit and have time. Please feel free to comment on anything here and to be part of the mojo!

On Episode Eleven of the podcast, Dr. Mike discusses how we can best get along with one another. He provides practical tips on how to minimize confrontation and get along with others.

A couple quick tips from Dr. Mike include…

(1) Notice the Similarities in people rather than their differences. This goes a long way to making people feel valuable and feel like they have something in common. When people realize that they have something in common, they are less likely to have conflict and more likely to feel wanted and worthwhile.

(2) Learn About Other People and their Culture. The reason much conflict exists is because we don’t take the time to learn about the other person. We rarely put ourselves in their shoes and therefore cannot see WHY that person is doing what they are doing. By doing this, we will find that less conflict ocurrs.

To find out more about these tips and the other 8 tips in this episode, download our podcast: Dr Mike’s Motivational Mojo today!

A couple of podcasts ago, I talked about mastering the soft stuff. A favorite, unknown source quote of mine is:

“The Hard Stuff is easy. The Soft Stuff is hard.
It’s the Soft Stuff that makes all the Difference!”
This rings so true when trying to muster our own motivational mojo. We can learn the hard stuff…for instance, we can learn to build a bridge. It’s hard, or difficult but we can learn it. However, can we learn what is going on inside of someone’s head? THAT is the real hard stuff. It’s almost impossible to know what people are thinking and what their intentions are and why they do what they do. We can learn to perform heart surgery or replace a broken heart valve, but God help us if we can figure out what our spouse or significant other was thinking when they did “that” – whatever “that” may be!

When we finally realize that the soft stuff is what is difficult, we will find our motivational mojo growing and getting better and better. We will find that the way we interact with people will begin to improve and we will actually discover that others are not being belligerent or mean, rather they are trying to understand us and get to know what makes us who we are. Once we realize this fact, we can begin to accept that we may never know why that person just did whatever it was that they did and allow ourselves to accept it and just be. This takes a huge burden off our shoulders…we give ourselves permission to stop trying to figure out this person and just “be” with this person…for what and who they are. Fights will stop…positive feelings will emerge and we’ll begin to just “be” instead of fighting against everything or getting frustrated because we’re trying to “figure them out.”

In essence, to maximize your motivational mojo, take the time to understand that soft stuff. And as for the hard stuff…forgetaboutit!

Doing the Motivational Mojo Podcast each week has been a great experience. We’ve been getting quite a few of regular downloads on iTunes of our podcast so there’s obviously some folks out there who like what they hear. It’s very heartening to know that people are listening. I hope we can keep the momentum going and help to maximize everyone’s motivational mojo!!

These past few months have been rather hectic with many things happening in my own life…most have been very stressful and many that could have caused my own motivational mojo meltdown. Fortunately though these weekly podcasts have helped ME to keep practicing what I preach. So many times we “know” how to keep our mojo motivated, but that knowledge gets bogged down in the day-to-day stuff called life. Pretty soon with all the stuff happening, we forget to maintain our motivational mojo by taking stock of who we are. Taking a few minutes out of the day or a small chunk out of the week can help us to gain stock of where we are, where we’ve been, and where we want to go. It can help us to get there…to keep the eyes to on the prize so-to-speak. I know doing these podcasts each week have helped maintain my motivational mojo…hopefully the Motivational Mojo Podcasts will help maintain yours too!

However, we often fail to really think about what it means and how it affects our relationships. Finding out what makes people tick is one of the keys to developing good, healthy relationships whether they are personal or professional.
What makes a person do the things they do?

What are the things they will not do?

What are a person’s passions?

What turns them on both personally and professionally?

What do they most enjoy?

And perhaps the most important thing in finding out what makes people tick is the WHY question! Take time to find out WHY people do or don’t do what they do. People will really appreciate this and they will think more of you and the relationship because of it. This will help you to develop your relationships in a much deeper and more substantive fashion. To put it bluntly – You’ll get along better with people if you find out what makes them tick!

Check out Episode 5 of the Dr. Mike’s Motivational Mojo Podcast for much more on finding out what makes people tick! You can find this podcast on iTunes (keyword – motivational) or at:

Stress Sucks!That’s right…we all know it…we all experience it…we all have caused it and we will always have it in our lives. It’s a scary but true realization that stress is part of us and that we must deal with it or it will deal with us.

Although stress is such a part of the human experience it doesn’t always have to be negative and can be dealt with in many ways. Multitudes of books have been written on stress-relief and many more presentations and programs have focused on minimizing stress in our lives.

When that “internal compass” that guides our moods and behaviors is stressed, our lives and relationships more easily spin out of control – or at least they seem like they are out of control. This can lead to a whole host of problems – both emotionally and physically. Although there are loads of things one can do to help with stress, I’ve summarized a few very simple things here that I think really help with controlling that nasty mojo we all know as stress!

(1) Chill – make conscious decisions NOT to escalate into an angry state.

(4) Change It Up – A change of scenery or getting a breath of fresh air always helps.

(5) Don’t get parched – Avoiding dehydration as well as eating right can ease stress tremendously.

(6) AT – TEN – TION! – Believe it or not, our posture has a lot to do with stress – Don’t slouch!

(7) Recharge – At the end of EVERY day you need to recharge doing something that relaxes you.

These are just some simple tips to help you deal with your stress levels. You can hear more about each of these tips by listening to the motivational mojo podcast– Episode 4which can be found on iTunes or at : motivationalmojo.mypodcast.com/index.html